


To Have, To See

by Daxiefraxie



Series: To Have [2]
Category: We Know the Devil (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/F, Seven Minutes In Heaven Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29318901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daxiefraxie/pseuds/Daxiefraxie
Summary: "The three of us aren't friends?" An honest question."You and Neptune aren't." Venus sighs. "Or, you are, but you don't want to be. Or she doesn't want to be. Or you both don't want to be. And I..." Something caught in her throat, something persistent, and she had to pause to clear it. "I don't want to get in the way."A rewrite of Jupiter and Venus's seven minutes in heaven scene, with a few very particular changes...
Relationships: Jupiter/Venus (We Know the Devil)
Series: To Have [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2150784
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	To Have, To See

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JaneTheNya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneTheNya/gifts).



> Content warning for brief allusion to self harm.

The closet is a place where light does not shine. And Venus sits there now, legs crossed, facing the door. Jupiter and Neptune laugh beyond it. Muffled humor through the slit of radiance, like neither wants to be apart from the other. Venus doesn't blame them. She brushes hair out of her eyes, and the door opens. A darting glance catches only the barest silhouette before the closet is plunged into darkness again.

"Venus?" comes the voice, and it is Jupiter's.

"Hi," she says, and it sounds so small in here. She feels so small, in here.

A moment of scuffling, like anxious footsteps. "Are you sitting down or something?" Jupiter asks.

"Yeah. I am."

Venus's eyes start to adjust to the dark just in time to see Jupiter flop down next to her. She can't help but flinch. "Sorry," Jupiter says. "I should have warned you."

"It's fine," and it was.

A sharp sound, the snap of a hairband against skin. "So," Jupiter begins, "we're here. In the dark. You and me."

"Why?" Venus asks, despite herself.

Jupiter shrugs, and Venus can see it – or feel it, almost. There's something odd about the air in here, it almost seems as if they're closer than they are. But maybe it's just claustrophobia, or Venus's eyes playing tricks on her. "That's the game, right?"

"No, um, I mean why me?" Venus reaches up to fiddle with her hair, pulling a bit of fuzz from her curls. "I thought you were going to pick Neptune."

Jupiter turns, and Venus thinks she might be looking at her. "Neptune? Why?"

Venus realizes she has no way of justifying that with a response.

"Why not you?" Jupiter continues, turning back towards the door. "You're safe. You're harmless." She giggles, inconsistent, like grains of laughter. "You're like a puppy."

It's hard not to be a little bit irritated. Not mad, Venus never gets mad, but it does bother her. "You lost your nerve, didn't you?"

Silence. Then, a sigh. "Except when you talk," Jupiter mumbles.

Venus wilts. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to–" She freezes. There's a hand on her head. Jupiter's, yes, but...

"Oh, wow." Jupiter breathes out another giggle. "You're so fluffy. What do you do with your hair?"

"Uh," Venus stammers out, and her cheeks are probably red enough to be seen clear even in the dark, broadcasting every embarrassing thought across the shadowed closet walls. "I mean, nothing much, I guess."

"Hm." Jupiter spins a lock around one finger. She's so gentle, careful, like she's scared an errant movement could...break Venus, somehow. "This isn't weird," she says, and it sounds almost as if she's trying to convince herself. "We're friends. This is...normal. Not weird at all."

"We're friends?" Venus whispers, and she doesn't know where the question comes from.

Her hand stalls, then ruffles, then lifts. And something about the absence of Jupiter's touch feels sharp, poignant. Painful. "See what I mean about 'except when you talk," Venus?" And it sounds like a joke, but it isn't one. Not to Venus, and maybe not to Jupiter either.

"Sorry." As if Jupiter's hand was the only thing holding her up, Venus sinks farther downward. "I think I meant, like, the three of us?"

"The three of us aren't friends?" An honest question.

"You and Neptune aren't." Venus sighs. "Or, you are, but you don't want to be. Or she doesn't want to be. Or you both don't want to be. And I..." Something caught in her throat, something persistent, and she had to pause to clear it. "I don't want to get in the way."

Jupiter says nothing, for a while. "You're not in the way. I don't think you are. I don't think Neptune thinks you are, either."

"But the three of us are always hanging out together, and you two never..." She clasps her hands together in a gesture that she realizes an instant later wouldn't travel well through the dark.

"Yeah." Jupiter shrugs. "I don't know. But we're alone together, sometimes. We could have then. But we don't. I don't know why," as if she anticipated Venus's next question, "but it's not you. Maybe it's me? It's probably me." Snap goes the hairband.

Venus takes a long breath in and out as she tries to make that work in her head, tries to plug new variables into her simple equation. She leans back against the wall, lets her legs relax just a little out in front of her. "I guess that can happen pretty easily. Like when you like someone, and they like you back, and neither of you realize."

"If it wasn't," Jupiter continues, "then that'd be fairy tales, yeah? Love at true sight? Uh, first. Sight."

Venus laughs, light as air. "Sure. There's something kind of romantic about that, even though it isn't real. Nice to think about, though. Like love can be something really easy."

Jupiter is silent, and a glance shows her face turned towards Venus again. "You sure are not like other boys," she says, slow and careful.

Venus laughs again. She can't help it, the sound just bubbles out of her. It should hurt, but it feels nice. "Thank you. I think it'd be easier if I was though."

"I think I finally found a compliment you like." And Jupiter laughs too, fuller than before. It's beautiful, like her. "Boys are pretty simple, aren't they? They don't hide how they feel about you."

"I don't know." Venus feels like hugging someone. Maybe Jupiter. Probably Jupiter. But she just hugs herself, crosses her arms and pretends like she was thinking hard. Not that Jupiter could see, but maybe she wasn't pretending for her sake. "I don't think boys are that simple, actually? When they're mad, they're mad to your face, but they're never..." She purses her lips. "If they're mad at you, they're half mad about something else too. Usually big things. And they hide it, by getting mad about something small. Sometimes they probably don't even know it."

The back of Jupiter's head thunks against the wall of the closet. "Girls do that too, sometimes." She turns her head, looking at Venus – always looking, never seeing. "What do you think I'm mad about?"

"I don't think you are mad?" Venus offers.

"What am I then?"

Venus had seen the scars on Jupiter's arms only once before, but she knows they're there. "I don't know," she says.

"You're lying," and the words cut deep.

Venus hugs herself tighter. "I don't think I'm supposed to know."

"What if I want you to know?" And Jupiter is closer now, somehow. Maybe she moved. Maybe Venus did.

"I don't think you're supposed to want me to know."

Jupiter sighs. "What about you, then? What are you mad about?"

"Lots of things," Venus replies. "I guess."

Jupiter moves. Knees shuffling against the awful, splintery floor, until she's sitting in front of her. "You're lying again." From this distance, Venus can see her smile. Knowing, maybe tired. "You're not mad. You're..." She looks off and up, searching for the word. "Jealous." As if plucking it from the heavens, like it was divine fire, and it flies from her lips an arrow. Jupiter stares at Venus. "Why are you so jealous?" She scoots closer, as if trying to see better, and Venus wilts until her back is pressed against the wall.

"I'm..." She thinks of denying, but her face feels hot, and her arms feel prickly, and her chest feels tight, and her heart is thundering against her ribs.

"Why would you be jealous of me?" Jupiter asks, and it isn't a question that Venus is meant to answer, not really. "I don't know what I have that you don't. Besides for..." And her eyes widen; Venus can see her eyes, she's so close she can almost feel her breath. "Maybe...you're jealous...of Neptune?" She tilts her head.

"I'm fine," she squeaks out.

Jupiter pauses. "That's what she says. You shouldn't...try to be like her?"

"Maybe I want to be like her," Venus says, and she considers it a miracle she can even find the breath to make those words.

"Maybe I don't want you to be like her." Her leg is next to Venus's now, safely positioned between her calves. "Maybe I want you to be like you."

Venus's head is full of a thousand words she wants to say to that, and none of them are prepared for Jupiter's lips on hers. It's careful, barely a hint of pressure, but it's electric, the herald of some great and terrible want. Whatever it is, Venus feels in that moment with the final bastion of thought she has left, that Jupiter wants it so badly she might just burn herself alive trying to reach it. And then even that fades away. Venus does as her nature strains against. She neither runs nor acquiesces. Venus reciprocates.

When Venus kisses her, Jupiter's hands are on her and around her, on her shoulders and through her hair. She isn't present enough to look for an answer to the impossibility of that touch, like a dozen Jupiters superimposed behind the mouth currently pressing against Venus's. She is clumsy, and she is wanting, and Venus's skull is filled with pearlescent white-noise melodies.

When Venus pulls away to catch any semblance of breath, the back of her head smacks against the closet wall. It doesn't hurt. "Ow," she says, on instinct, and then she leans back in to kiss Jupiter again.

"Sorry," Jupiter whispers against Venus's lips. "I'm sorry." And yet, she does not pull away. 

Maybe she simply can't.

**Author's Note:**

> I lifted a lot of these lines from the canon scene, and I hope that doesn't fuck too much with anyone's enjoyment. But as much as I loved Jupiter and Venus's seven minutes in heaven scene, I'm still disappointed that they don't smooch during it. Smooches for Venus 2k21!
> 
> (There's an incredibly high likelihood that I'll be adding another chapter to this with Neptune and Venus...just saying ;p )


End file.
